My Dear Friends,
Lent begins really early this year. Doesn’t it seem that we have barely put away the last of our Christmas decorations? Perhaps pots of poinsettias still lurk in the background and threaten to survive until Easter! How is it possible that it is time to receive sacred ashes and to begin to prepare for the renewal of our baptismal vows at the Easter Vigil?
Yes, time does have a way of slipping through our fingers. For that reason, our experience of time might serve as a suitable subject for reflection on the season of Lent. And so, I invite you to consider how our experience of time can be a revelation of the presence of God in our daily (sometimes humdrum) lives.
Since time is a part of creation and all creation has the potential to manifest God’s love, mercy, and goodness, it is possible to describe time as sacramental. We already know this through our celebration of the liturgical seasons and such feasts as Christmas and Easter.
Indeed, as people of faith, we are continually invited to enter into a deeper relationship with time. When we do, the passage of time and our experience of its rhythms, offer glimpses of God’s action and presence in the ordinariness of our lives. The Spirit is always inviting us to discern the meaning of time in the light of God’s plan.
The theologian Yves Congar observed that “To interpret events from God’s point of view, to understand that God is waiting at the door, to recognize that it is God who raps—all that is to exercise prophetic grace.”
God invites each of us to participate in this exercise of prophetic grace. Let us pray that this Lent we may recognize God when he raps at the door of our heart. Let us spend quiet time reflecting on how God speaks to us through our own experience. And let us spend the gift of these Forty Days discerning God’s unfolding plan in our life and the new ways that God invites us to live our baptismal commitment.
Peace and all good things!
S Judith M Kubicki
Provincial Minister
Thank you for the lovely sentiment! I shared it with my son who will be celebrating his 57th birthday very soon. We are able to reflect on time passed over these years and the influence of having a loving God to guide us through it.